Episcopal Priest Suspended for Plagiarism

This should serve as fair warning to lazy priests.

One of the Ten Commandments is “thou shall not steal,” but an Episcopal priest has been suspended for allegedly lifting more than a dozen Sunday sermons verbatim from a book.

The Rev. John E. McGinn, 65, who has led the 300-plus families at St. John’s Episcopal Church since 1993, was placed on administrative leave amid allegations that he plagiarized sermons dating back to 2006, said the Rev. Mally Lloyd, canon to the ordinary for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, a position equivalent to the bishop’s chief of staff.

As many as 15 sermons have been identified as direct copies, Lloyd said.

They were allegedly taken from a book called “Dynamic Preaching,” which can be accessed only with an online subscription…

The Cape Cod Times has the rest.

 

God Save the Queen

Which God?

The coronation of the next monarch will include a role for people of other faiths besides Christianity, in a break with a thousand years of history, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt…

Church of England leaders have accepted the need to be “hospitable” to other faiths within any future service at Westminster Abbey, in order to reflect the spiritual diversity of modern Britain.

More here.

‘Spiritual diversity?’ That doesn’t matter. Britain will be a Muslim country within the next 50 years or so and then they’ll see how well they do with their ‘spiritual diversity’.

And almost as if to make my point:

A new analysis…

… shows that a decade of mass immigration helped mask the scale of decline in Christian affiliation among the British-born population – while driving a dramatic increase in Islam, particularly among the young.

It suggests that only a minority of people will describe themselves as Christians within the next decade, for first time.

Meanwhile almost one in 10 under 25s in Britain is now a Muslim…

And:

The flag of St George will not be flying over Radstock any time soon after town councillors decided it was inappropriate because of its links with campaigns against Islam hundreds of years ago.

Councillor Eleanor Jackson (Lab, Radstock), a university lecturer and teacher, said its use during the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries could mean the English national flag could be seen by some as offensive.

She added: “My big problem is that it is offensive to some Muslims…”

And this:

A disturbing story of child sex abuse has been gripping the people of Oxford, England.

Seven local men have been found guilty of rape, trafficking and arranging a child prostitution ring.

The convicted men are of Pakistani and North African backgrounds.

Their victims were as young as 11-years-old…

Along with the police chief, members of Oxford’s Muslim community are doing some some soul searching of their own wondering how the abusers were able to commit their crimes for so long.

Or this:

There are “hundreds” of Europeans now fighting in Syria, some of whom are with groups linked to al Qaeda, the Home Office told MPs.

The British-born jihadis are said to have joined the fight with Jabhat al-Nusra, the country’s most militant al-Qaeda gang…

Officials warned of the risk to Britain and other European nations posed by foreign fighters now gaining military experience in Syria…

 

Belief in God Improves the Outcome in Treatment for Psychiatric Illness

According to a Harvard study:

Belief in God significantly improves the outcome of those receiving short-term treatment for psychiatric illness, a recent study conducted by the Harvard Medical School researchers has concluded.

In the study, published in the current issue of Journal of Affective Disorders, Dr. David Rosmarin, a clinician at McLean Hospital and instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, examined individuals at the hospital’s Behavioral Health Partial Hospital programme to investigate the relationship between patients’ level of belief in God, expectations for treatment and actual treatment outcomes.

“Our work suggests that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without, regardless of their religious affiliation. Belief was associated with not only improved psychological wellbeing, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm,” Dr. Rosmarin reported.

The study looked at 159 patients, recruited over a one-year period. Each participant was asked to gauge their belief in God as well as their expectations for treatment outcome and emotion regulation, each on a five-point scale. Levels of depression, wellbeing, and self-harm were assessed at the beginning and end of their treatment program.

Of the patients sampled, more than 30 per cent claimed no specific religious affiliation yet still saw the same benefits in treatment if their belief in a higher power was rated as moderately or very high. Patients with “no” or only “slight” belief in God were twice as likely not to respond to treatment than patients with higher levels of belief.

The study concludes: “… belief in God is associated with improved treatment outcomes in psychiatric care. More centrally, our results suggest that belief in the credibility of psychiatric treatment and increased expectations to gain from treatment might be mechanisms by which belief in God can impact treatment outcomes.”

Dr. Rosmarin commented, “Given the prevalence of religious belief in the United States — over 90 per cent of the population — these findings are important in that they highlight the clinical implications of spiritual life.”

 

Let the Cloning Obfuscation Begin

Wesley J. Smith in the National Review:

Now that human cloning is upon us, look for many scientists and their camp followers (or ignorant reporters) to mislead about what the technology entails. Human SCNT creates human embryos through asexual means. It does not create stem cells. To obtain cloned stem cells, the embryos have to be nurtured and maintained in a dish for about 10 days, destroyed, and the stem cell lines derived.

But don’t look for the embryo part to make many stories. Early case in point, a story by Loren Grush on FNC:

In a major medical breakthrough, researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) have for the first time ever successfully converted human skin cells into embryonic stem cells–via a technique called nuclear transfer. The research has major implications for the future of medical treatments, as many believe embryonic stem cells are the key to treating damaged cells lost through injury or illness.  According to various medical researchers, stem cell therapy has the potential to treat anything from heart disease and spinal cord injuries to major neurological diseases, like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

Through a common laboratory method known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), ONPRC scientists, along with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, essentially swapped the genetic codes of an unfertilized egg and a human skin cell to create their new embryonic stem cells…The combination of the egg’s cytoplasm and the skin cell’s nucleus eventually grows and develops into the embryonic stem cell.

False! Repeat after me: The unfertilized egg is not turned into stem cells. Rather, in the same cloning process as resulted in Dolly the sheep, it becomes an embryo, which is destroyed to obtain the cells. Moreover, the process is hardly common. In fact, this is the first time SCNT has worked in humans. That’s why it’ a big story!

The human cloning issue is going go be a Mt. Everest of ethical contention. If we are going to discuss this rationally, we need accurate information from the scientists and the media. I plan to hold both to account in this regard going forward.

 

Report: Canadians Turning Away from Organized Religion

Religion News Service reports:

A new national study shows that while Canada remains overwhelmingly Christian, Canadians are turning their backs on organized religion in ever greater numbers.

Results from the 2011 National Household Survey show that more than two-thirds of Canadians, or some 22 million people, said they were affiliated with a Christian denomination.

At 12.7 million, Roman Catholics were the largest single Christian group, representing 38 percent of Canadians; the second largest was the United Church, representing about 6 percent; while Anglicans were third, representing about 5 percent of the population.

Observers noted that among the survey’s most striking findings is that one in four Canadians, or 7.8 million people, reported they had no religious affiliation at all. That was up sharply from 16.5 percent from the 2001 census, and 12 percent in 1991.

The Canadian trend seems to mirror but even exceed levels of non-affiliation in the United States. A 2012 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life pegged the ratio of religiously unaffiliated Americans at just under 20 percent.

But Pew also has found that more than one-quarter of American adults (28 percent) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion — or no religion at all.

The Canadian study showed that just more than 7 percent of the country was Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, an increase from 5 percent a decade earlier…

Officials in Ottawa stressed that the NHS results, which also examined trends in immigration and ethnic diversity, could be unreliable. Because it was a voluntary survey, it is “subject to potentially higher non-response error than those derived from the census long form,” Statistics Canada cautioned…

Reginald Bibby, a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge and one of Canada’s foremost trackers and interpreters of religious trends, said the NHS findings “do not point to the demise of religion in Canada. But the findings document the tendency of Canadians to reflect the pattern of people across the planet in variously embracing or rejecting religion.”

 

Anglican Archbishop Accused of Bullying

Archbishop Dr Phillip Aspinall, who is the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia.

Lawyers for the Archbishop and the synod of Brisbane diocese have failed to get key elements of the sexual harassment and discrimination case thrown out of Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal…

His accuser says:

the Archbishop isolated her, failed to respond to her emails, declined to discuss important issues and was “bullying, condescending and interrogating”…

Rest here.

 

UN Now Urges Eating Insects

Via AFP:

Beetles, caterpillars and wasps could supplement diets around the world as an environmentally friendly food source if only Western consumers could get over their “disgust”, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Monday.

“The main message is really: ‘Eat insects’”, Eva Mueller, director of forest economics at the FAO, told a press conference in Rome.

“Insects are abundant and they are a valuable source of protein and minerals,” she said.

“Two billion people — a third of the world’s population — are already eating insects because they are delicious and nutritious,” she said.

Also speaking at the press conference was Gabon Forestry Minister Gabriel Tchango who said: “Insect consumption is part of our daily life.”

He said some insects — like beetle larvae and grilled termites — were considered delicacies.

“Insects contribute about 10 percent of animal protein consumed by the population,” he said.

The report said insect farming was “one of the many ways to address food and feed insecurity”.

“Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, and they have high growth and feed conversion rates and a low environmental footprint…

Rest here.

More like bottom feeding.

 

Bishop’s Luxury Goods Seized

The Assets Forfeiture Unit here in South Africa has raided the home of Bishop Samuel Banzana.

Port Elizabeth – R2.9 million worth of luxury goods have been seized from a retired bishop’s home in Port Elizabeth.

 

The Asset Forfeiture Unit raided Reverend Samuel Banzana’s home early this morning.

He’s under investigation for accepting kickbacks from a construction company he allegedly awarded tenders to, for RDP houses.

Banzana is the manager of the Mzingisi Trust, which was founded by ANC veteran Govan Mbeki.

The organisation builds RDP houses in the Port Elizabeth area.

The Eastern Cape High Court has granted the National Prosecuting Authority a protection order, effectively freezing the prominent bishop’s assets.

Among the goods seized were three luxury cars.

His home will also be seized.

The cleric has 14 days to respond to the allegations against him.

He is Bishop Ordinary of the Holy Catholic Church – Western Rite, the Diocese of the Umzi Wase Topiya.

 

IDF Infographic

 

What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains